Page 289 - erewhon

continued dry, and in another week the Queen’s workmen
had finished the balloon and car, while the gas was ready to
be turned on into the balloon at any moment. All being now
prepared I was to ascend on the following morning. I had
stipulated for being allowed to take abundance of rugs and
wrappings as protection from the cold of the upper atmo-
sphere, and also ten or a dozen good-sized bags of ballast.
I had nearly a quarter’s pension in hand, and with this I
fee’d Arowhena’s maid, and bribed the Queen’s foreman—
who would, I believe, have given me assistance even without
a bribe. He helped me to secrete food and wine in the bags of
ballast, and on the morning of my ascent he kept the other
workmen out of the way while I got Arowhena into the car.
She came with early dawn, muffled up, and in her maid’s
dress. She was supposed to be gone to an early performance
at one of the Musical Banks, and told me that she should not
be missed till breakfast, but that her absence must then be
discovered. I arranged the ballast about her so that it should
conceal her as she lay at the bottom of the car, and covered
her with wrappings. Although it still wanted some hours of
the time fixed for my ascent, I could not trust myself one
moment from the car, so I got into it at once, and watched
the gradual inflation of the balloon. Luggage I had none,
save the provisions hidden in the ballast bags, the books of
mythology, and the treatises on the machines, with my own
manuscript diaries and translations.
I sat quietly, and awaited the hour fixed for my depar-
ture—quiet outwardly, but inwardly I was in an agony of
suspense lest Arowhena’s absence should be discovered be-

Erewhon